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My Okinawan go-ju (hard-soft) karate studies began in January, 1995, graduating to 3rd-degree black belt in June, 2002. That September, I started the Salt Spring Shorei-Kan dojo, continuing since then as chief instructor.

Master Tomoaki Koyabu helped me write a book, Dancing in the Kara of Te, which covers some key basics I've learned through him about the art.

I've learned about other self-defence and martial arts as well, especially from organizing and running a five-week community participation program in Vancouver called "The Art of Martial Arts" in 1998. Thirty different martial arts schools representing 24 different forms from seven countries taught classes, gave performances, and contributed visual, musical, dramatic, and other arts to the events. More than 1,200 people attended, and many continued taking classes from the school of their choice.

Since the pandemic started, I've had the pleasure and privilege of connecting online with 200+ mostly-senior self-defence/martial artists from around the world, thanks to Roy Kamen starting One World Dojo. My learnings from Facebook and Messenger discussions with them, as well as from Koyabu-sensei, continue exponentially.

click on images for larger size

Seikichi Toguchi Brenda's watercolour	Karate is from the island of Okinawa, an art that grew from a mix of local hand-fighting techniques and Chinese & Japanese martial arts, then transformed into karate from the additon of – this is little known – south-Asian dance gestures to create a movement are unique in the world. Master Seikichi Toguchi, on the left, created Shorei-Kan (House of Politeness and Respect) karate from Master Chogun Miyagi's pioneering karate work. Karate has also transformed into sport and competitive forms that no longer have the requisite inner dance within them, hence are no longer true karate. They need a different name.
I painted this watercolour for Koyabu Sensei following my 1st-degree black belt test, to thank him for his karate genius and for his help building a Japanese garden in our yard.

White belt prints These white belt images are crude and clunky - just the way I felt during my first year of karate. They're framed by black - the many black belts who taught me and the black belt that I might eventually achieve. Ki energy is red on all of these pieces.
		Top left: Baby Steps In my first class, there were several black belts, no brown, green with yellow stripes, white with green stripes, and me in the whitest of white. I'm taking my first tentative, crude basic-walking steps, with no notion of how far I'll go. Top right: Four Ways from Home In beginner katas (patterns of movement), one steps in the four ordinal directions from the central starting point. In more advanced katas, one steps in 45-degree angles as well - eight ways from home - and even occasionally 22.5 degrees. Bottom left: Inside Outside Worlds Karate is about integrating body, mind, and spirit, to resolve inner and outer conflicts. The mountains of Okinawa, where karate originated, are in the distance. The white belt square separates the potential black belt within, while ki surges from underground / undercurrent sources. Bottom right: Learning to Flow White belts are stiff and straight. Green belts flow into brown, which flow into black, who are finally able to integrate the flow of sky and water into their moves, thinking, and philosophy.

Learning to Breathe This panel is about breathing, coordinating breath with movement, so the katas begin to settle and flow. All the following images are framed in white, because we are all white belts in this great Universe, and because "the end of all our journeyings is to return to the beginning and to know it for the first time" - to become white belts again (with thanks to T.S. Elliot).
Beginning Seyunchin Seyunchin is an old kata, of indeterminate age. It's about settling in, while marking the beginning of the roughest part, for many, to black belt. The crudeness and ghost-like unsettled energy show how I felt as I mimicked the kata patterns.	Sanchin Sanchin, another ancient kata, focuses on breath and power. In the penultimate set of moves, one grabs the air while breathing in to fill the expanded, centred locus of ki energy. By learning to breathe again like a baby, one's learnings simplify, settle, and progress.	Seyunchin with White Crane wings This depicts the open moves of Seyunchin, done to music. When breathing, pulse, and intent become clear, the kata flows, becoming calmer, simpler, freer. The goal is to do the entire kata this way.

Hakutsuru no Mai - White Crane Dance
Master Chogun Miyagi saw White Crane martial arts in his travels to China. He died quite suddenly, before creating an Okinawan White Crane dance. Seikichi Toguchi, his wife and Okinawan dancer, Haruko Toguchi, and karate-dance expert and friend Seihin Yamanuchi did this, creating a performance piece with deep karate roots.	White Crane fights Snake in the garden, but rather than vanquish him, as in the Chinese White Crane dance, the Okinawan Crane tumbles Snake away and summons the strength and courage to fly away. This symbolizes Okinawa's relationship with China, as a vassal state that found ways to keep its language, culture, joy, freedoms, and dance-loving ways.	By third-degree black-belt, karate-ka ars ready to free, to open their own dojo, if they wish, while remaining under the wing of their master. In Shorei-Kan karate, White Crane kata/dance symbolizes this bold transition. By fifth-degree black belt, the student becomes Shihan, teacher of teachers, and can fly free entirely from the master, if desired.

Black Belt panel All of these images have a black belt in them, with a thin gold thread through the belt. Karate has become that in my life and to my other arts.
Sunrise This represents sunrise over the Okinawan hills. It also depicts the Rocky Mountains of my childhood, a core part of me. When I meditate and when my moves/arts flow, my head, heart, and ki energy are those a child waking to a mountain-perfect day.	White Bird Black belt is not an arrival, but a beginning. There's pride in achieving it, but it's daunting too, because responsibilities increase dramatically. By chance, in th printing process, a little bird appeared in the upper left corner. Fitting serendipidies increase as ability and understanding grow.	Sunset This is the sea, where life begins and ends, where flow is constant and ever-changing.The sun – the Okinawan sun – will rise again, and we will come full circle to Sunrise, just as a silk black belt, when worn over the years, becomes white again, as we train "with beginner's mind & heart".

Click here for a post about body-mind-spirit harmony and joy.